Google Glass To Arm Police, Firefighters

Mutualink says teaming Google's Internet-connected eyewear with its network will help emergency personnel improve public safety.

Google Nexus 7, Chromecast: Visual Tour

(click image for larger view)

Google's latest cautious moves on behalf of its computerized eyewear hasn't matched the spectacle seen at the debut of Glass last year, as skydivers wearing the device descended on the company's 2012 developer conference.

The company's slow rollout to a few thousand developers has only just expanded, with early adopters now able to invite their friends to pay $1,500 for the opportunity to try a device that, in some form or another, will expand the way people think about mediated interaction and mobile technology.

Confronted by public skepticism about the utility and social acceptability of Glass, Google has pushed back with stories about how Glass can enable the disabled, capture live events and perform generally useful functions without further diminishing our rapidly dwindling privacy.

Although Google, because of its history and nature, has to tread carefully around the privacy implications of Glass, government agencies can be a bit more cavalier. In the public sector, the tendency is to prioritize public safety over privacy.

So it is that the debut of Mutualink's integration of Google Glass with the company's multimedia interoperability platform for first responders and associated agencies focuses on the benefit of sharing live video among police officers or firefighters -- rather than the violation of social norms, and possibly of privacy laws, arising from non-consensual video and audio recording.

Mutualink says it plans to demonstrate how real-time two-way video and audio from Google Glass can be integrated into its public safety communications system at the 2013 Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials (APCO) conference, which runs through Wednesday in Anaheim, Calif.

The goal, said Michael Wengrovitz, VP of innovation at Mutualink, in a statement, is to "enable anywhere, anytime communications and information sharing" using a hands-free device, while avoiding technical incompatibilities between different systems.

Mutualink sees potential in Glass as a way for firefighters to review building plans before entering a burning structure, for EMTs to view medical records while triaging patients at accident scenes, and as a way for police to keep an eye on video feeds from security cameras in real time during crisis response scenarios.

"Mutualink believes that police and firefighters will be using the Google Glass capability soon," said Joe Mazzarella, SVP and chief legal counsel of Mutualink, in a statement. That could mean next year: A company spokeswoman in an email said Mutualink will be providing its technology to partners in Brazil in preparation for the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympics.

Noting that first responders often wrestle with technology that gets in the way as it tries to help, Mazzarella praised Glass as an attempt to overcome the "usability and user interface design challenges with personalized, wearable computers."

Mutalink's position on privacy is that "Google Glass is no different from the many public and private surveillance systems already deployed that capture public activity."

The company insists its multimedia interoperability platform accommodates privacy through individual and agency access controls. There is no centralized database of media assets, the company says. Rather, media assets are distributed and under the logical and physical control of the originating agency.

The headline triggered my "Dystopian Surveillance State" alarm, but after reading the article and thinking about it a little bit, I think there's some good potential here, such as the EMT example (though significant integration work would be required). Also, I wonder if police officers would be less likely to engage in bad behavior with a camera recording everything they do.

Government agencies actually will find it very hard for Google Glass to satisfy standardized security and risk management provision that agencies need to apply on all BYOD devices, and which still haven't been fully ironed out. Even if agencies want to use Glass, the way firefighters might, it will take a while for the rules to catch up with the technology.

"has to tread carefully around the privacy implications of Glass" like all other Google privacy breaking or illegal (copyright violation) activities. They will just buy their way into our hearts with 100% recording of human events from billions of first person accounts...coming to an IMAX theater near you...who is blurring my face when it is posted on YouTube without permission?

To learn more about what organizations are doing to tackle attacks and threats we surveyed a group of 300 IT and infosec professionals to find out what their biggest IT security challenges are and what they're doing to defend against today's threats. Download the report to see what they're saying.

Chances are your organization is adopting cloud computing in one way or another -- or in multiple ways. Understanding the skills you need and how cloud affects IT operations and networking will help you adapt.